The Courier & Advertiser (Perth and Perthshire Edition)
Ministers concerned over Indian variant of Covid-19
The government is “anxious” about the Indian variant of coronavirus and is “ruling nothing out”, Boris Johnson has said, as he hinted local restrictions may be needed.
Scientists are keeping a close eye on the spread of the variant across the UK, with new figures from Public Health England (PHE) expected to show a big rise in cases.
The prime minister said: “It is a variant of concern, we are anxious about it.
“At the moment there is a very wide range of scientific opinion about what could happen.
“We want to make sure we take all the prudential, cautious steps now that we could take, so there are meetings going on today to consider exactly what we need to do.
“There is a range of things we could do, we are ruling nothing out.”
The Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage) held a meeting yesterday to discuss the spread of the Indian variant, amid fears it could have an impact on the government’s road map out of lockdown.
“At the moment, I can see nothing that dissuades me from thinking we will be able to go ahead on Monday and indeed on June 21 everywhere, but there may be things we have to do locally and we will not hesitate to do them if that is the advice we get,” the prime minister said
Asked if masks and social distancing would be scrapped, Mr Johnson said more announcements would be made before the end of the month.
He added: “I think we have to wait a little bit longer to see how the data is looking but I am cautiously optimistic about that and provided this Indian variant doesn’t take off in the way some people fear, I think certainly things could get back much, much closer to normality.”
Earlier, Professor Steven Riley, from Imperial College London, said whether the road map for England continued on its planned trajectory was “a government decision” but suggested the UK was currently in a good place.
On Wednesday, the European Medicines Agency said it was “pretty confident” that vaccines currently in use would be effective against the Indian variant – a view echoed by some British scientists.
Three types of the Indian variant have been identified in the UK, one of which is a variant of concern.
But Professor James Naismith, from Oxford University said not enough was known to say for sure whether the variant could frustrate the UK’S vaccination programme.
Prof Naismith said he did not believe local restrictions would contain the variant.
Elsewhere, Professor Adam Finn, from Bristol University and a member of the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI), suggested there was no firm plan for vaccinating teenagers and younger children.
He told BBC Breakfast: “We’ve not really had any discussions yet about immunising teenagers or indeed younger children.
“We don’t have any vaccines authorised for those age groups at the moment.
“But I think it’s also an open question as to whether or not we really will need to do that at this point and, in fact, if we can get really good coverage and a high uptake in the adult population, like Israel, we may find that you see a disappearance, if you like, of Covid throughout the whole population, even without immunising children.”